Is There Life After Death

The Worst Danger Of All

Why believe in life after death?

I Cor 15"13,14 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

Most of the problems raised by the church at Corinth concerned personal behavior. After tackling each of those problems, Paul turned to one last question, a matter of doctrine. Some people in church were challenging the Christian belief in an afterlife. Death they said, is the end.

Many people have questioned the afterlife. In Jesus's day, a Jewish sect called Sadducees denied the resurrection from the dead.

Doubters persist today (among them: many Black Muslims, Buddhists, and Marxists and most atheists.But Paul saw the matter of life of after death as the most explosive issue in the Corinthian church.

Pitiable Christian

If there's no future life, he thundered, the entire Christian message would be a lie. He, Paul, would have no reason to continue as a minister; Christ's death would have merely wasted blood; and Christians would be the most pitiable of all people.

I Cor 15 weaves together the threads of Christian belief about death. It shows how death is finally conquered and become, not an end, but a beginning. Cheered by such a triumphant note, the apostle Paul sums up his counsel to the Corinthians with a ringing challenge to "stand firm".